Shared Hyper-V storage using iSCSI

hp-modular-smart-arrayhyper-viscsistorage

I have 2 servers with Hyper-V 2016 hosts and a MSA 2040 storage, both are connected via iSCSI. Hosts are running on thight internal storage.
I need to store all my VMs into the MSA, but if I understand it right I cant use the storage simultaneously. Im trying to set up a replication solution with a shared storage.

Are there some other way how to make that storage shared and multi-usable besides clustering it in Windows Server or VMware environments? As far as Im concerned VMware takes the given volume, formats it and make it usable for every host. Is there a way how Microsoft does it?

Best Answer

With regards to your setup, in order to implement shared storage for Hyper-V Cluster it would be enough to setup on both servers:

  • the latest Windows updates
  • Failover Cluster feature
  • MPIO feature
  • Hyper-V role.

Having installed Windows Server with its updates:

  1. Enable iSCSI support at MPIO settings.
  2. Configure iSCSI connections to MSA 2040 storage.
  3. Create Failover Cluster
  4. Add MSA 2040 storage as Cluster Shared Volume (CSV).
  5. Create Hyper-V VM hosted on ClusterVolume (which would be CSV)
  6. Configure Hyper-V Failover and Live Migration

More about the implementation you can read in HPE MSA 2040 guide

You should note, a single storage array is kind of a single point of failure and it would be beneficial in terms of redundancy and availability to add one more array or go hyperconverged with software-defined shared storage solutions like HPE StoreVirtual VSA, StarWind Virtual SAN or Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct.

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